For who ? For ourselves. Did we do something, some ritual that affirmed our faith today ? In what ? In ourselves. Our ability to connect with our inner selves. For if we do not, who is this person that is working, loving, talking etc. It’s certainly not you.
It’s an everyday search for me. For that something that can put me in touch with myself. My connection to consciousness. My connection to loving nature.
Of course many people have faith. Which is a wonderful ability. I don’t have blind faith. I am more of a searcher. Questioner. Good, bad ? I don’t know. No value judgements on any faith or the question of faith. Or on myself.
Some people do it with meditation first thing in the morning. I have never been able to do that. I have to connect to something, however small, however little, to loose my sense of individuality. That’s the daily struggle. Against my own exaggarated sense of myself. I am so used to it. I have relied on it for so many years. So tough to let go now. Not that I have never questioned it before. But now, it is really important for me to be truly ‘active’ rather than ‘reactive’, which is what I have done most of my life. And how do I know what that ‘true’ action is ? Unless I am constantly in touch with something larger, more immense, more universal than myself ?
Yes I know. By letting go. By allowing yourself not to be addicted to the result of your action. By allowing chaos to invade your life. Yes, I agree. All of that. I do allow chaos to prevade in my life. I am impeteous (spelling). But then the individual in me fights back hard.
It’s an everyday battle. This battle to let go of one’s addiction to one’s sense of individuality.
Yet, the smallest of things can provoke the sensing of my flowing into something much much larger. Something infinite.
This morning it was my 5 year old daughter waking me up with a loud ‘Peekaboo’ and the tinkling of an early morning laugh.
Sometimes it;s just getting up early enough to watch the first shades of dark blue brush across the sky. Something deeply stirring about that.
Sometimes it’s unexpected gestures of affection that were not sought. Or given so instinctually that you were not aware of them.
Sometimes, it’s writing a poem. But only if the words are coming from somewhere else. As if something is flowing through you, a river of emotion you can physically feel that flows through your being.
But it is always so unexpected. So much that I am constantly aware now. My senses hightened. Waiting for that unexpected moment.
When something deeper will reach out and engulf me, and give my life, and all my actions, however small, a deeper and all encompassing context. On a daily basis.
So say a prayer for me. And for yourself.
Shekhar
Interesting flow of the birds…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=snvwuo66AcQ
Master Hanh coming to Toronto August 2013
Aum
yes 🙂
The Holy Longing by Wolfgang von Goethe
Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven’t experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.
Translated from the German by Robert Bly
On this day, I have journeyed in this body for 18,247 years,
translated into 50 years.
Aum to all the Ones who have
inspired
loved
cared
listened
taught
argued
delighted
empowered
injoyed
disliked
shared
offered
supported
been themselves
advised
demeaned
insulted
complimented
praised
mentored
befriended
cherished
appreciated
forgiven…
Namaste…blessings…Om Namah Shivaya
antibiotics…the flu gets rid of the flu?
then something feels better?
is this what some humans do with other humans?
lots of assignments
tired
sleepy
exhausted
depressed
fed up
zoned out
numb
sad
bewildered
learning
scared
non trusting
silence
hushhhh
abandoned
courage
persistence
struggling
balancing
accepting
forgiving
angry
upset
overwhelmed
nausia
hurts
bullied
endure
raped
ripped
demeaned
threatened
scolded
bought
owned
shackled
sold
deceived
violated…….
how can a person study and work and live under these conditions?
and
is expected to treat others with fairness, equality, and inclusiveness?
Who would do such a thing?
…there is a deep lesson in life here
to be realised
aum
“…we can be the masters of the things that try to enslave us.”
~Paulo Coelho
water will decide for us … because we are abusing its existence,
this is the way of nature
isn’t it?
…nature will let us know who is really in charge…
so much for technology
the moment of this power
lies not in our hands….
From the beginning of human experience our species has intuitively understood that Movement was somehow an important tool in both living a good life and connecting with an Essence larger than themselves.
It is no coincidence that even in the earliest times, when humans were feeling good about something and wanted to celebrate, they moved.
Intuitively, they jumped to their feet and agitated in joyous celebration. And soon their movements became coordinated, remembered, and recreated. In short, they danced. This is a physical expression of Resonance.
It is also no coincidence that when they felt bad about something, and sought help from what they understood to be a Higher Power, once again they danced.
We have been dancing and moving in a coordinated and purposeful way for millennia. Somehow we knew that it was good for us.
And it is. We were right, it is.
Not surprisingly, then, Movement is considered to this very day to be a joyful and wonderfully effective Instrument of the Holy Experience; a tool used by many to achieve outer relaxation and inner peace.
In Sufism—which is, of course, a form of Islam—some Muslims dance and swirl their way to a sense of blissful connection with the Divine. They are called Whirling Dervishes.
In contemporary America a new trend has been sweeping the land, called Ecstatic Dance. In cities and towns across the country groups meet weekly to engage in this emerging new version of an ancient form of joyful movement that can bring one an experience of separation from day-to-day worries and frustrations and unification with Life at an entirely different level. Nothing has changed, yet everything is different. For a moment, one can dance into ecstasy.
And, of course, all over the world will be found yoga classes and groups. Another rapidly spreading form of physical-spiritual connection is Dahn Hak, a Korean practice involving pre-set and prescribed movements that seek to unify Body, Mind, and Spirit together as a single life expression through sequenced physical activity.
Tai chi is still another form of such Body-Mind-Spirit integration activity. And then, there is just plain good old-fashioned “exercise.”
However you employ it, the tool of Movement has been known to produce significant benefit. Not only, as may seem obvious, physical toning and shaping, but metaphysical sharpening and opening as well.
~Neale D. W.
aum~Gajindranath Maharaj~aum
I know nothing
or
I don’t know anything
Does this mean I know something called “nothing, or not knowing anything means I know nothing?
hmmm
butterflies…
One of my students’ said to me, “Miss Raymond, what do you wanna be when you grow up?”…I said, “I haven’t figured out yet”.
I near fell over with laughter! Ahaha haha ahahahaha ahaa
You must know, I am 50 years, but it’s my childishness that they see and feel:-)
arrived
Chan Mary Shanmati Raymond Sankar ~ my Mother,
Ma
pass on 16 years ago
today
aum
We say that we will have a Good Life.
This is a guarantee
if we are kind to one another.
If we are patient.
If, when I speak, you listen
and if when you speak, I hear you.
This is assured,
if we continue to look for one another.
If we want to find.
If, when I am here, I am seen,
and if, when you are here, I see you.
We say that this will be a Good Life.
This is a guarantee
if We are Naked with one another.
If We are clotheless.
If, when I am vulnerable,
you shelter,
and if, when you are defenseless,
I protect.
(© 2007. From the book Silent Sacred Holy Deepening Heart by the American poet Em Claire)
Well, I am finding more and more…
I can get lost, in the frantic highways of getting things done on time.
What is this all about?
Why do we do what we do?
How is it so easy to repeat mistakes once made from times before…over and over again?
Sheer stupidity? Ignorance? Blindness? …. I do not know!
I do not know
I do not know…
Aum
Happy Father’s Day!
To all the Fathers who dedicate(d) their lives to raising their children mindfully, lovingly and bringing awareness to the Being of their child(ren).
and
To all the father’s who do their best…
Aum
I am tired…and there are billions more tired than me,,,
Aum
Power of Intention…released here
ENERGITICS the new form of recognising the existence of what can travel from one form to the next…
because there is truly no end or beginning,
just movement from one thing to the next, so therefore, energy also moves like
that of genetics, hence…
energetics
Aum
Sri Sri Sri Ganapathi Sachchidananda Swamiji
I imagine you exist…and we are meeting
we embrace
we feel
we share
we flow…
I imagine
we exist
A Note from Neale…
My dear friends,
The time has come…for all of humanity to decide Who and What we Really Are, and Who and What we Choose To Be in relationship to that, and how we wish to demonstrate that in our world.
The time has come…for leadership to emerge in every city, town, and village on the globe, in every time and place, in the form of brave and strong and wise individuals, ready to receive the call, prepared to make whatever sacrifice is required, anxious to get on with the task, and determined to not abandon The Work until The Work has been done.
The time has come…for you to decide whether you are that leader in the world within which you move, if you are to be that one who will stand shoulder to shoulder with the few courageous Others and change the course of our Future by changing the direction of our Present.
“It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.”
For the world can wait no more. The people of this planet can sustain themselves no longer across millennia and centuries on the strength of humanity’s past and present behaviors. We have, at best, but decades left, and then we will be required to shift our experience, or we will have our experience shifted for us.
Our species, as a collective, knows and understands this at a celluar level. We are therefore now asking ourselves, on this day and from every corner and place: If not now, when? If not you, who?
For it is as Robert F. Kennedy said, addressing the people of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966, in words that are even more true today than they were then:
The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress.
It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.
Paraphrasing and expanding on the words of Robert Kennedy, I would observe that there are some who believe there is nothing that one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single person. A single monk began the Protestant reformation, a young woman reclaimed the territory of France, one lone black minister said “I have a dream” and altered the course of his nation’s history, a frail and elderly nun awakened the compassion of humanity across the globe. And 32-year-old Thomas Jefferson declared that all men are created equal.
Once again quoting Robert Kennedy directly…
These people moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
It is from numberless, diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.
Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, that person sends forth a tiny ripple of hope…and, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistence.
…Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also times more open to the creative energy of men and women than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged–and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves–on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society, and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.
Robert Kennedy also said these words:
Some men see things as they are and say, why? I dream of things that never were and say, why not?”
It is time, now, for us to say, “Why not?” It is our opportunity to begin a new kind of civil rights movement…a civil rights movement for the soul…freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its beliefs in an exclusivist, violent, angry, and vengeful God, who would judge us for our human foibles and misunderstandings, and who would condemn us to everlasting damnation for approaching Him in the “wrong way.”
” This is important work that you are doing, and you must, must continue.”
What the world needs now is a New Spirituality, a new way to honor our impulse toward the Divine that does not make others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.
I know that many of you are working right now to produce that result, each in our own way. I see this every day, and each day I hear about efforts distant from me, in which you and others like you everywhere are engaged. This is important work that you are doing, and you must, must continue. Continue in your homes, continue in your relationships with your loved one, your children, your neighbors and friends, your co-workers, your fellow citizens. And continue in ways to increase and magnify your probability of success in making a real difference on our planet.
That is, of course, the work of this Foundation—the Foundation that sends you this Bulletin each week, filled with what we hope are inspiring and helpful insights from CwG. And the Foundation’s work goes way beyond that. From our Books for Friends/Prison Outreach program, that sends free copies of CwG to prisons and the indigent, to our Retreats and the new CwG College, and all the Foundation is doing to spread the word of CwG throughout the world.
Let us work together to do this. The time has come.
With love and hugs,
Neale D. W.
My dear friends,
The time has come…for all of humanity to decide Who and What we Really Are, and Who and What we Choose To Be in relationship to that, and how we wish to demonstrate that in our world.
The time has come…for leadership to emerge in every city, town, and village on the globe, in every time and place, in the form of brave and strong and wise individuals, ready to receive the call, prepared to make whatever sacrifice is required, anxious to get on with the task, and determined to not abandon The Work until The Work has been done.
The time has come…for you to decide whether you are that leader in the world within which you move, if you are to be that one who will stand shoulder to shoulder with the few courageous Others and change the course of our Future by changing the direction of our Present.
“It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.”
For the world can wait no more. The people of this planet can sustain themselves no longer across millennia and centuries on the strength of humanity’s past and present behaviors. We have, at best, but decades left, and then we will be required to shift our experience, or we will have our experience shifted for us.
Our species, as a collective, knows and understands this at a celluar level. We are therefore now asking ourselves, on this day and from every corner and place: If not now, when? If not you, who?
For it is as Robert F. Kennedy said, addressing the people of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966, in words that are even more true today than they were then:
The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress.
It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.
Paraphrasing and expanding on the words of Robert Kennedy, I would observe that there are some who believe there is nothing that one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single person. A single monk began the Protestant reformation, a young woman reclaimed the territory of France, one lone black minister said “I have a dream” and altered the course of his nation’s history, a frail and elderly nun awakened the compassion of humanity across the globe. And 32-year-old Thomas Jefferson declared that all men are created equal.
Once again quoting Robert Kennedy directly…
These people moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
It is from numberless, diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.
Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, that person sends forth a tiny ripple of hope…and, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistence.
…Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also times more open to the creative energy of men and women than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged–and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves–on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society, and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.
Robert Kennedy also said these words:
Some men see things as they are and say, why? I dream of things that never were and say, why not?”
It is time, now, for us to say, “Why not?” It is our opportunity to begin a new kind of civil rights movement…a civil rights movement for the soul…freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its beliefs in an exclusivist, violent, angry, and vengeful God, who would judge us for our human foibles and misunderstandings, and who would condemn us to everlasting damnation for approaching Him in the “wrong way.”
” This is important work that you are doing, and you must, must continue.”
What the world needs now is a New Spirituality, a new way to honor our impulse toward the Divine that does not make others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.
I know that many of you are working right now to produce that result, each in our own way. I see this every day, and each day I hear about efforts distant from me, in which you and others like you everywhere are engaged. This is important work that you are doing, and you must, must continue. Continue in your homes, continue in your relationships with your loved one, your children, your neighbors and friends, your co-workers, your fellow citizens. And continue in ways to increase and magnify your probability of success in making a real difference on our planet.
That is, of course, the work of this Foundation—the Foundation that sends you this Bulletin each week, filled with what we hope are inspiring and helpful insights from CwG. And the Foundation’s work goes way beyond that. From our Books for Friends/Prison Outreach program, that sends free copies of CwG to prisons and the indigent, to our Retreats and the new CwG College, and all the Foundation is doing to spread the word of CwG throughout the world.
Let us work together to do this. The time has come.
With love and hugs,
Neale D. W.
…for Gary Diggins…healing, peace and comfort
Aum Shanti Shanti Shanti Hari Aum
Love and prayers to all those who need it in this moment…
Aum
…for Yvonne,
strength
comfort
love
peace…
aum
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday, Sept. 1, that there now is no uncertainty whatsoever as to whether chemical weapons were used in the Aug. 21 massacre of nearly 1,500 people — including over 400 children — in Syria.
Mr. Kerry said that hair and blood samples from the victims of that attack, collected by first responders and provided to the United States, have tested positive for sarin, which, an NBC News report said, “is considered to be the most toxic and fast-acting chemical warfare agent.” Mr. Kerry revealed the results of those tests on the NBC program Meet the Press.
The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has steadfastly insisted that it was not responsible for the use of those weapons, claiming that opposition rebel forces, whom the government labels “terrorists,” launched the chemical attack in order to claim that the government did so, thus to rile international sentiment against the Assad regime.
Mr. Kerry on Friday, Aug. 30 said, however, that the U.S. believes with “high confidence” that the Assad government is responsible for the attack on its own people, based on a number of highly reliable intelligence sources, including intercepted communications between regime military commanders, satellite tracking of missiles launched from government-control areas to the site of the massacre, and other intel, which Mr. Kerry said could not be detailed publicly without jeopardizing sensitive sources.
The question before the world is: What should be the response of the international community if it is proven that the Assad regime did, in fact, gas its own people to quell the citizen rebellion that has plagued it for over two years?
As well: What should be the response of the international community if it is proven that the rebel forces perpetrated the attack in order to have something to pin on the government and give the U.S. and other Western powers a justification for launching attacks on Syrian government military assets, thus weakening the government’s ability to fend off the two-year-old rebellion?
Conversations with God said in Book One that if despots are allowed to continue in their despotism, what does that teach those despots? It also famously said:
“Sometimes man must go to war to make the grandest statement about who man truly is: he who abhors war. There are times when you may have to give up Who You Are in order to be Who You Are. There are Masters who have taught: you cannot have it all until you are willing to give it all up. Thus, in order to “have” yourself as a man of peace, you may have to give up the idea of yourself as a man who never goes to war. History has called upon men for such decisions.”
This leaves me, as a person who opposes any decision by U.S. President Barack Obama to employ U.S. missile power in targeted strikes against strategic military installations in Syria, in a challenging position. If there is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that Syrian President Assad used that nerve gas on his own people, that would make him a despot of the first rank.
As President Obama himself has implied: What is a despot being taught if he is allowed to get away with despotism? And, likewise, if the Syrian rebels actually did use sarin on their own fellow citizens in order to “frame” Assad and his regime, what would it teach them if they were allowed to get away with it?
The spiritual response to these events would be to find a way to allow growth and remembering (or what some people would call “learning”) to occur. CWG says sometimes humans must go to war. But now, here is where I notice something very important in the CWG cosmology. The dialogue does not define exactly what it means to declare war. Ah, but my dictionary does. Under “war” it offers as one of its definitions: “a sustained effort to deal with or end a particular unpleasant or undesirable situation or condition”…as in: the authorities are waging war against all forms of smuggling.
Now this is something I can agree with. We must not let those who used chemical weapons in Syria think they can do so with impunity. There will be consequences to pay, and severe ones that will not be pleasant, or easily ignored. Yet those consequences do not have to involve lethal military weapons. They do not have to involve the killing of people.
It is as Einstein said. We cannot solve a problem at the same level and with the same energy that created the problem. We cannot end killing with killing, violence with violence, hatred with hatred. Yet neither can we look the other way as despots commit despotism.
If the Syrian government is proven to have used nerve gas on its own people (and much of the current evidence points that way), the world (and yes, that includes Russia and China) can and should turn that regime into a pariah government, supported by not even its present allies. Not in the U.N., not in the international trade markets, not in the court of global public opinion, not in any way whatsoever. All imports of every kind, by any nation, should cease. Blockades ensuring that edict should be enforced. All cooperation with the government should end. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would find out soon enough that he made not only a humanly horrific, but also a politically horrendous, error.
And if new evidence emerges that the rebels were, after all, responsible for the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in an effort to frame the Assad regime, then any and all support from any and all quarters now flowing to the rebels must be immediately and forever ended.
Mr. Kerry said that the second scenario is completely fabricated by the Assad government and is impossible to believe, because of the high improbability that the rebel forces could get their hands on such weapons grade nerve gas, much less have the capability of delivering it from rockets tracked by satellites to be blasting off from government held territory at the moment of the attack.
The world’s job now must be to deliver all the evidence gathered so far to allow the international community to deal with this monstrosity with certainty and sureness, bringing the perpetrators to non-violent but effective reckoning. It is possible to do this. It is just as possible as launching missiles and killing more people.
As well, as spiritual beings, we have another option: Pray. Envision. Intend.
Call it by whatever word fits into your personal understanding, but use the power of Purposefully Focused Energy to generate an expanded contextual field around the experience that humanity is co-creating regarding Syria — a field that now includes the reality of peace and safety, harmony and cooperation, joy and celebration.
This can work. Yes, it can. Along with practical measures taken on the ground in Syria. Like the establishment of War Free Zones, protected on the ground and in the air by nonaligned U.N. peacekeepers. And the shipping in of extensive food and medical supplies and other necessities. And the use of the same enormous expenditures that it would take to launch missile strikes against that country, to offer aid in many forms (education, social services, etc.) to the rank-and-file citizens of that country, so that they could ultimately decide for themselves who they want to govern them, and by what national approach or mechanism.
Give the power back to the people to determine their country’s future. Remove it from the warring factions on both sides, and return it to the people. Freedom is the highest expression of spirituality, because it is a characteristic of Divinity.
Divinity has two essential qualities: Unconditional Love and Total Freedom. Bring that to Syria and watch the situation resolve itself without the use of a single killing weapon.
With love and hugs,
Neale Donald W.
TEACH…the documentary.
Our future is our children.
The message is the message…it is mostly in the delivery
is what
will
inspire
children
to
feel
excited
about
learning…Aum
Finding Peaceful Solutions(((Syria)))Conversation Mindfulness Compassion
The Cosmic Yes…
Aum
Aum Shanti Aum
Aum Gum Ganapatayei Namaha
Aham Prema
Narasimha Tava Dasohum
Aum asatomo satgamaya
Tamasoma jyotirgamaya
Mrityorma amritamgamaya
My dear friends,
Why is life turning out the way it is turning out? Why is love so often so hard to find, and then to keep? Why is goodness and kindness and compassion and even a smiling face sometimes so hard to find in our day-to-day experience? Must our lives consist of drama, drama, and more drama day in and day out?
I get asked questions like these a lot, and as I turn to the Conversations with God dialogues to find answers, here is some of what I uncover, in these words from God:
Every human thought, and every human action, is based in either love or fear. There is no other human motivation, and all other ideas are but derivatives of these two. They are simply different versions — different twists on the same theme. Think on this deeply and you will see that it is true.
This is what God has called the Sponsoring Thought. It is either a thought of love or fear. This is the thought behind the thought behind the thought. It is the first thought. It is prime force. It is the raw energy that drives the engine of human experience.
And here is how human behavior produces repeat experience after repeat experience; it is why humans love, then destroy, then love again: always there is the swing from one emotion to the other. Love sponsors fear sponsors love sponsors fear …
… and the reason is found in the first lie — the lie which you hold as the truth about God — that God cannot be trusted; that God’s love cannot be depended upon; that God’s acceptance of you is conditional; that the ultimate outcome is thus in doubt. For if you cannot depend on God’s love to always be there, on whose love can you depend? If God retreats and withdraws when you do not perform properly, will not mere mortals also?
…And so it is that in the moment you pledge your highest love, you greet your greatest fear. For the first thing you worry about after saying “I love you” is whether you’ll hear it back. And if you hear it back, then you begin immediately to worry that the love you have just found, you will lose. And so all action becomes a reaction — defense against loss.
Yet if you knew Who You Are — that you are the most magnificent, the most remarkable, the most splendid being God has ever created — you would never fear. But you do not know Who You Are, and you think you are a great deal less.
And where did you get the idea of how much less than magnificent you are? From the only people whose word you would take on everything. From your mother and your father. These are the people who love you the most. Why would they lie to you? Yet have they not told you that you are too much of this, and not enough of that? Have they not reminded you that you are to be seen and not heard? Have they not scolded you in some of the moments of your greatest exuberance? And, did they not encourage you to set aside some of your wildest imagining?
These are the messages you’ve received, and though they do not meet the criteria, and are thus not messages from God, they might as well have been, for they have come from the gods of your universe surely enough. It was your parents who taught you that love is conditional – you have felt their conditions many times – and that is the experience you take into your own love relationships.
It is also the experience you bring to God. From this experience you draw your conclusions about God. Within this framework you speak your truth. “God is a loving God,” you say, “but if you break His commandments, He will punish you with eternal banishment and everlasting damnation.” For have you not experienced the banishment of your own parents? Do you not know the pain of their damnation? How, then, could you imagine it to be any different with God?
You have forgotten what it was like to be loved without condition. You do not remember the experience of the love of God. And so you try to imagine what God’s love must be like, based on what you see of love in the world. You have projected the role of “parent” onto God, and have thus come up with a God Who judges and rewards or punishes, based on how good He feels about what you’ve been up to. But this is a simplistic view of God, based on your mythology. It has nothing to do with Who God is.
Having thus created an entire thought system about God based on human experience rather than spiritual truths, you then create an entire reality around love. It is a fear-based reality, rooted in the idea of a fearful, vengeful God. Its Sponsoring Thought is wrong, but to deny that thought would be to disrupt your whole theology. And though the new theology which would replace it would truly be your salvation, you cannot accept it, because the idea of a God Who is not to be feared, Who will not judge, and Who has no cause to punish is simply too magnificent to be embraced within even your grandest notion of Who and What God is.
This fear-based love reality dominates your experience of love; indeed, actually creates it. For not only do you see yourself receiving love which is conditional, you also watch yourself giving it in the same way. And even while you withhold and retreat and set your conditions, a part of you knows this is not what love really is. Still, you seem powerless to change the way you dispense it. You’ve learned the hard way, you tell yourself, and you’ll be damned if you’re going to leave yourself vulnerable again.
Yet the truth is, you’ll be damned if you don’t.
====================Having re-read that marvelous passage from Book One, I have made a new determination on this wonderful September day in 2013 to share my love unconditionally with all those whose lives I touch. I know this is not going to be easy. I have embarked on this mission before. I have embraced this challenge in the past. I did not always succeed in my endeavor. (To be transparent, I did not succeed nearly as much as I had hoped I would.)
Ah, but that was Then, and this is Now. I’ve lived a bit more Life. I loved a bit more fully. I’ve laughed a bit more loudly. I’ve longed a bit more earnestly for the most complete experience of Divinity in every moment that I can call forth. I know more now. And as wonderful Maya Angelou says: “When we know better, we do better.”
How about you? Want to join me in this adventure?
Sending light and love….
Neale Donald W.
When we begin to see where light and darkness meet at every point
then,
we begin
to
see
(((Om Namah Shivayah)))
“Be the Change you Wish to SEE”
Gandhiji…Happy Birthday to a timeless inspiration and spirit of compassion and awareness
Aum
When we make the choice…we find more then the answer to what we
thought we were choosing
Aum
In the field of the mystics, there is no here or there
there is
everywHERE
Like that of Tesla and Maria Montessori,
these Beings lived a life of pure gift,
holding true to what is
and
not possessing it…
Aum
The other day, I looked in the mirror for the first time
and
stumbled across myself.
Who is that person, I need to get to know?
Have I seen the end to know the beginning?
Did all of this happen in the blink of an eye…and whose eye?
what does it matter?
or
does it?
what is this thing we call meaning?
and
why do we give so much attention to it?
when all we are doing by doing that is to
create more and more suffering
beyond what we feel we can handle…
and
then what?
perhaps…
there may be some guidance
at
http://www.ishafoundation.org
Aum
This Is It . . .
Aum
Happy Diwali to all that is the Light, within…everyone
Aum
Sending love and light to all the people and creatures in this world who are suffering and finding it difficult to manage the challenges they are faced with on a daily basis.
Aum